Iran has launched missiles at American warships at least three times in the past week, including what has been described as a new electro-optical missile. US Central Command said the ships evaded the attacks. Officials are reported to be increasingly concerned that Iran has improved its ability to target moving vessels.

That last point is the technically significant one, and it is worth explaining rather than repeating.

Why hitting a ship is hard

A ballistic missile aimed at a fixed target is, in principle, a solved problem: you know where the target is, and the missile follows a calculated trajectory.

A warship is not fixed. A destroyer moving at thirty knots covers roughly fifteen kilometres in the time a medium-range ballistic missile is in flight. By the time the missile arrives, the ship is not where it was when the missile was launched.

Solving this requires the missile to find and correct toward the target during the final phase of flight. That is what a terminal seeker does, and it is the part that separates a weapon that threatens ports from one that threatens fleets.

What “electro-optical” means

Seekers come in several kinds, and the choice involves trade-offs.

A radar seeker emits energy and reads the return. It works in cloud and at night and over long distances, but the emission announces itself, and it can be jammed or deceived by decoys that return a similar signal.

An electro-optical or infrared seeker sees rather than emits — visible light or heat. It is passive, so it gives no warning that it is looking, and it is not vulnerable to radar jamming. Its weaknesses are weather, since cloud and haze degrade it, and range, since it must get reasonably close before it can distinguish a ship from the sea.

The defensive implication is direct. Electronic warfare systems designed to defeat radar-guided weapons do not work against a seeker that is simply looking. A navy facing both has to defend against each differently.

How much to believe

Considerable caution is warranted, in both directions.

Claims about a new weapon in an active war come from parties with reasons to shape perception. Iran has an interest in appearing able to threaten American ships, since deterrence works on belief rather than demonstrated capability. The United States has an interest in describing an evolving threat, which supports the case for resources and for the posture it has adopted.

What is comparatively solid: missiles were launched at warships on multiple occasions, and CENTCOM says the ships evaded them. That the attacks missed is itself informative — an improved seeker that does not yet hit is a capability in development rather than a capability in hand.

What is not established: the technical characteristics of the weapon, whether it performed as designed, and whether footage released by the IRGC shows what it is said to show.

Why Iran is escalating now

Reporting frames the shift as an attempt to break a stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz that is strangling Iran’s economy. Attacking warships rather than commercial shipping is a deliberate step up: warships are defended, and striking one would be a far graver event than hitting a tanker.

That logic has a well-understood risk. Escalating to create pressure for a settlement works only if the other side responds by negotiating rather than by escalating in turn, and the record of that calculation across conflicts is mixed at best.

Sources

• 10 Things Global News briefing, 10 September 2026, on Iranian missile launches at US warships and a new electro-optical missile
• US Central Command statements on evaded attacks, September 2026
• Standard technical references on terminal guidance, radar and electro-optical seekers, and anti-ship ballistic missiles
• Our earlier reporting on the tanker war and the Strait of Hormuz